Kale Salad Recipe with Apple and Dried Sour Cherries

If you have one kale salad recipe in your repertoire, this recipe has to be it. I have converted many kale skeptics to actually liking the green leafy nutritional powerhouse (or at least being less skeptical), upon tasting this recipe.

Kale Salad Recipe

Truth be told, this is not an original recipe of mine. It is from Cynthia Lair, a professor at Bastyr University, who has written wonderful books such as Feeding the Whole Family, Feeding the Young Athlete, and is the mastermind behind the amazing cooking video series, Cookus Interruptus. If you are not familiar with Cookus Interruptus, stop what you are doing NOW, and go watch a video, or two, or three. You will be laughing, I promise, and feeling less terrible how about life gets in the way of cooking sometimes, okay, all the time.

Instructions

Remove stems from kale leaves by pulling leaf away from both sides of the stem in one swift movement. Once de-stemmed, in 2 batches, stack leaves, roll up and cut into thin ribbons crossways (chiffonade). Wash and drain well in a colander.

Very thinly slice 1/8 cup onion. Roughly chop dried cherries. Core and finely dice apple. Toast sunflower seeds: put in a dry skillet over low heat for a few minutes, stirring often, until they give off a nutty aroma, and remove immediately from the pan so they don't over toast.

Put drained kale in a salad bowl. Add salt, massage salt into kale with your hands for 1-2 minutes. Do not rinse.

Pour off any leftover liquid after massaging kale. Stir onion, dried fruit, apple and most of the toasted seeds into kale. Dress with oil and vinegar and toss. Taste for salt and vinegar, adding more if necessary. Garnish with sunflower seeds and serve.

Notes

*Lacinato kale is also goes by the names black kale, Cavolo Nero, Dinosaur Kale, Tuscan kale. It is my first choice for kale variety in this recipe, due to texture, but others could work as well.